1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens barrel having a shutter flexible circuit board, and an image pickup apparatus having the lens barrel.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a lens barrel unit mounted to an image pickup apparatus such as a digital camera, there has been proposed a lens barrel unit that includes a lens barrel supported by a fixed barrel, a shutter flexible circuit board disposed along an outer periphery of a shutter unit provided in the lens barrel, and a lens barrel flexible circuit board disposed on an outer periphery of the fixed barrel, wherein the shutter flexible circuit board has a connection member inserted through a through hole of the fixed barrel and exposed to the outside and then electrically connected to the lens barrel flexible circuit board (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-225430).
In the proposed lens barrel unit, the connection member of the shutter flexible circuit board is bent immediately after being inserted through the through hole of the fixed barrel and is then connected to the lens barrel flexible circuit board. Accordingly, the lens barrel must be moved forward in order to insert the connection member into the through hole of the fixed barrel, resulting in low workability in assemblage.
Since the connection member is bent immediately after being inserted through the through hole, the connection member is sometimes applied with a force acting to press the connection member into inside the lens barrel. In that case, there is a fear that ghost or flare is caused by reflection of light passing through a photographing optical system by the shutter flexible circuit board pressed into inside the lens barrel, or that wire disconnection is caused by the shutter flexible circuit board being pinched between component parts inside the lens barrel when the lens barrel is brought into a retracted state.